


SIB(LING)

by lbk_princen



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Family Feels, Gen, Half-Siblings, Siblings, Xing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27493006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbk_princen/pseuds/lbk_princen
Summary: Ling Yao had forty-one brothers and sisters.Ling Yao was an only child.
Relationships: Greed (Ling) & Ling Yao, Lan Fan & Ling Yao, Mei Chan | May Chang & Ling Yao
Comments: 8
Kudos: 62





	SIB(LING)

**Author's Note:**

> my friend pointed out that i should address how this fic portrays greedling and lingfan as sibling relationships when i have other fics where those relationships are less than platonic; i like exploring different possible avenues of character relationships and fma is full of so many good, layered, dynamic relationships with a multitude of interpretations. this fic is not congruent with any of my other fics. treat them as seperate, branching possibilities.

Ling Yao had forty-one brothers and sisters.

Ling Yao was an only child.

 _Duty_ was a very important word to Ling. As a prince he had a duty to his people. As a son he had a duty to his mother and father, regardless of their political identities (regardless that he saw his father maybe twice a year from across the palatial banquet hall). But he held no duty, no loyalty to his half-siblings. They were nothing but numbers to him, obstacles to overcome.

Growing up, the closest thing Ling had to a sister was Lan Fan. She was his best friend, his playmate, his partner-in-mischief, his confidant. She was ten months older than him and he looked at her with stars in his eyes — he wanted to do everything with her, and they were always kept just separate enough that they never got sick of each other’s company.

It changed when Lan Fan turned ten, when her father died and Fu had to come out of retirement to help keep Ling safe. She started calling him “master” and “lord” instead of his name. She became more of a servant than a sister, and Ling hated it.

So Ling was an only child.

Then Ling met Greed, and he was awful at first, but Ling weathered it. He weathered it long enough to see that he and Greed had more similarities than differences. The antagonism turned to kinship, and before Ling knew it they were working together, sharing a home in the shape of a body and pushing each other playfully but also supporting the other when he needed it.

Then Greed gave himself up to protect their friends, to protect _Ling,_ and Ling lost the only real brother he’d ever had.

So Ling was an only child.

And _then_ he walked through the desert with Lan Fan on his left and Mei Chang on his right, and they both were and were not his sisters, and he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. He wanted to laugh like Greed had laughed, raucous and so self-indulgent he could puke.

Mei still didn’t trust him, he could see it in the way she never fully relaxed around him, eyes narrowed and hands close to where she kept her kunai. Ling didn’t have the energy to tell her not to bother. He was fascinated by her in a way — they had the same blood, the same motive: to protect their families, and yet they _were_ family, and yet they were enemies. It was a tangled web that Ling’s ancestors had woven, and he was far from free of it. He suspected Mei’s children would not be free of it either. (Becoming a homunculus for even such a short time had taken the option of children away from him for good, and he was sort of relieved; he would never inflict on anyone else what the Emperor had inflicted on him and all forty-one of his siblings.)

He thought of how he’d looked up to Lan Fan and Greed, and wondered if Mei would ever think of him that way. An older brother. Could he ever be that for her? It didn’t seem possible, with the way she still turned her nose up at him in conversation, still slept on the opposite side of the fire, facing away from him. But at least she talked to him. At least she slept by the fire at all.

On a particularly cold night, Ling saw Mei and her panda shivering, and he draped his blanket over her, then walked away without a word. He didn’t want to hear her yell at him for pitying her, or — perhaps worse — _thank_ him for a gesture that should have been as easy as breathing, if they’d really been siblings. Instead it was the hardest thing he’d done all day.

By the time they reached Xing, Mei had begun to relax around him a little more, but he had no time to dwell on that because they were thrown headfirst into political turmoil. He presented the philosopher's stone to the Emperor, and the Emperor called him “son,” (the man Ling had just buried had done more to raise him than the Emperor ever had; he wanted to laugh out of spite) and Ling had to hope it was enough.

Court life reminded Ling why he’d enjoyed Amestris so much — he missed the wind in his hair.

Mei stayed at his side, and Ling slowly began to learn her. He learned the way her nose scrunched when she was displeased, the way she squealed when she was excited, and the way she hit _extremely_ hard when he picked her up from behind without warning. He had a bruise for days, but the laughter had been worth it. He found that he liked her, and wished she would come to him with her problems. He wanted to help, guide, protect.

 _My sister._ The thought was fiercely protective and surprised him while he and Mei were sitting together in the palace library. She was curled against his side, paying him no attention whatsoever as she flipped through a book on alkahestry. He had a book of his own in his hands, but he hadn’t read a word in the past five minutes.

Ling draped one arm around Mei’s shoulders without looking at her, and she glanced at him curiously. She was so small compared to him, five years younger and tiny like her panda. It was clear she’d been underfed in her poverty-stricken clan, but after months of palace food there was a fullness to her cheeks and an inch to her height that she’d lacked when he first met her. That fierce protectiveness reared its head again like a mighty beast in Ling’s chest and he squeezed her shoulders, eyes still on his book. He would never let her go hungry again. He would care for her, and when he succeeded the Emperor he would care for her whole clan, like he’d promised.

After fifteen years of neglecting his duty as a brother, it was the least he could do.

So Ling was not an only child.

  
  



End file.
